Integrating expert range maps in distribution models

Species distribution models are commonly used to estimate species’ geographic distributions to inform biodiversity assessments and conservation planning. However, despite their growing popularity, potential distribution predictions are affected by biases in the input of these models: the opportunistic occurrence records. Integration of expert range maps in the models could help, but this strategy is still rarely used, especially for marine species. Ákos Bede-Fazekas, assistant professor of our department was a member of the international research group which conducted a comparative analysis of models integrating and models not integration expert range maps. They built models for 196 marine fish species with global distributions. They found that models informed by expert range maps avoided overpredictions of ranges past geographical barriers. The research was led by Zhixin Zhang and was published in the D1-ranked journal "Conservation Biology".